Here is another link to a group seeking to develop open content textbooks:
A bit of text from their site:
The mission of the open textbook project is to develop
openly copyrighted (copylefted) textbooks using the free software development model. The books, developed collaboratively, would be freely available to download, modify, print and distribute. Not only are textbooks unavailable to a great number of students in the US and abroad simply due to cost, few textbooks are universally suitable for courses in any given subject and many are simply sub-standard. The Open Textbook Project aims to address these issues by using a collaborative development model which has proven its effectiveness in the world of free software.
Development has begun!
We are currently working on the website and the
interactive tools with which individual textbook projects will be developed. We'll make a more formal announcement when there is more ware and less vapor.
And from the main page:
in Limine strives to find innovative and thoughtful ways
to improve education and the arts. Our efforts take the form of well-focused, low cost projects. Our organizational model is an incubator in which we nurture small, sometimes risky projects with administrative and financial support until they are able to stand on their own. We are constantly seeking new ideas. We don't aim to change the world (just small pieces of it).
Jimmy: Have you been in any more contact with those Cali folks, the Creative Commmons fellow or anyone else?
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com
Karl Wick wrote:
Perhaps we need a 'similar projects' page on the wikitext site?
We are currently working on the website and the
interactive tools with which individual textbook projects will be developed. We'll make a more formal announcement when there is more ware and less vapor.
We could probably help them with that, and *fast*. We have software, after all, and an enthusiastic community.
I recommend visiting the inlimine.org main website. It's sort of interesting. It looks like it's basically a couple who are trying to do various things and who have gotten funding for something else, but no funding for their textbook project.
We have the huge benefit of not waiting for funding before just randomly working on stuff that interests enough people. :-)
Jimmy: Have you been in any more contact with those Cali folks, the Creative Commmons fellow or anyone else?
The Cali guy emailed me and said he was busy and would email later. I chat with Larry Lessig from time to time, but haven't talked to him *lately*. He's excited about the textbook project using a creative commons license.
--Jimbo
textbook-l@lists.wikimedia.org